US Counties With the Highest Population Below the Poverty Line (Census SAIPE)
3,141 US counties ranked by population below the poverty line (census saipe), from highest to lowest. First are Ziebach County, SD (444.81), Martin County, KY (401.75) and Oglala Lakota County, SD (355.27). The middle one of the 3,141 has 132.17.
What this measures
The number of people below the poverty line. It is an estimate from a statistical model, not a direct count. Source: Census SAIPE.
This is a count, so it is ranked per 1,000 residents. Ranked by the raw total, it would just list the biggest counties.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 highest counties
Every state, highest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | Per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Louisiana | 181.67 |
| 2 | Mississippi | 175.98 |
| 3 | New Mexico | 165.44 |
| 4 | West Virginia | 157.99 |
| 5 | Kentucky | 157.27 |
| 6 | Oklahoma | 155.45 |
| 7 | Alabama | 154.33 |
| 8 | Arkansas | 151.58 |
| 9 | District of Columbia | 147.02 |
| 10 | South Carolina | 139.01 |
| 11 | Texas | 138.04 |
| 12 | Tennessee | 137.91 |
| 13 | Georgia | 136.51 |
| 14 | New York | 135.75 |
| 15 | Michigan | 131.54 |
| 16 | Ohio | 128.87 |
| 17 | North Carolina | 127.72 |
| 18 | Arizona | 126.29 |
| 19 | Florida | 125.02 |
| 20 | Nevada | 122.17 |
| 21 | Indiana | 119.77 |
| 22 | Oregon | 118.85 |
| 23 | Montana | 117.91 |
| 24 | Missouri | 117.35 |
| 25 | California | 117.16 |
| 26 | Pennsylvania | 115.33 |
| 27 | South Dakota | 112.52 |
| 28 | Illinois | 112.26 |
| 29 | Rhode Island | 109.63 |
| 30 | Kansas | 108.87 |
| 31 | Delaware | 108.56 |
| 32 | Iowa | 107.91 |
| 33 | Wisconsin | 104.22 |
| 34 | Maine | 103.09 |
| 35 | Alaska | 102.99 |
| 36 | Wyoming | 102.56 |
| 37 | Washington | 102.48 |
| 38 | Idaho | 102.43 |
| 39 | Massachusetts | 101.56 |
| 40 | Nebraska | 100.53 |
| 41 | Virginia | 100.15 |
| 42 | Connecticut | 99.92 |
| 43 | Hawaii | 99.05 |
| 44 | North Dakota | 96.85 |
| 45 | New Jersey | 95.56 |
| 46 | Vermont | 95.45 |
| 47 | Maryland | 94.82 |
| 48 | Colorado | 92.70 |
| 49 | Minnesota | 90.91 |
| 50 | Utah | 90.86 |
| 51 | New Hampshire | 72.03 |
More on population below the poverty line (census saipe)
- US Counties With the Lowest Population Below the Poverty Line (Census SAIPE)
- Population below the poverty line (Census SAIPE) by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.